Minutes from Drawn Together - A Parliamentary Event on 24/01 Where 10 All Party Parliamentary Groups For Creatives Came Together - Including The APPG For Textiles and Fashion

24/01/2018

Macmillan Room, Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament.

Speakers:

Alison McGovern MP, Chair of Performer’s Alliance APPG

Paul Blomfield MP, Labour Shadow Minister for Exiting the European Union - covers home

affairs and immigration issues

Jack Powell, Creative Industries Federation

Naomi Pohl, Assistant General Secretary of the Musicians Union - on behalf of the trade unions of the Performers Alliance

Paula Graham-Gazzard, Director - Contemporary Visual Arts Network

Tim Scott, UKIE - the association for UK Interactive Entertainment

Bob and Roberta Smith, British contemporary artist

Sharon Hodgson MP, Chair of Art, Craft and Design in Education APPG

The event brought together 10 creative sector All Party Parliamentary Groups to bring our voices and concerns into the same debate, to highlight the cross-creative issues of Freedom of Movement to the future of our fluid and thriving creative industries.

Alison McGovern MP hosted the event this year, the second annual Drawn Together event in the Houses of Parliament.

Coming together to represent joint concerns across CI sectors

Paul Blomfield MP

-       Brexit is a hugely difficult process

-       Need to mitigate damage of an extreme brexit

-       Labour accepts the referendum

-       Jobs and economy top priority

-       CI provides £87bn to economy and employs 300 million

-       Migration a central theme in Brexit discourse

-       Deep deceit by Brexiters approach

-       Challenged message of control over borders

-       Easy to achieve lower migration: crash the economy

-       No one will want to come

-       Current migration system is broken

-       If we [UK gov’t] limit movement of EEA like non EEA the economy will crash

-       There are cross sector concerns on migration

-       Free movement will end but we want easy movement

-       Deal must have reciprocity

-       Hostile environment for discourse surround migration

-       UK creative workers need to continue to have easy movement

Jack Powell - Creative Industries Federation

-       CIF’s Global Talent Report

-       CI huge asset in UK economy

-       Need to support Educational and cultural opportunities

-       CI fastest growing sector worth £92bn

-       Priority industry strategy

-       All sector access to int’l talent necessary for success

-       Need to work with the best talent to stay ahead and competitive

-       Int’t talent provides cultural perspectives to access int’l markets

-       CI work with cutting edge technology

-       Need to bring in forward looking talent

-       ⅓ of CI workers are freelance - Brexit needs to think how to accommodate them

-       Int’l touring outgoing and incoming nee ease of free movement

-       Need to think about Brexit damage control

-       Repair UK international reputation as unwelcoming

Naomi Pohl

-       Artists rely on the ability to travel across borders

-       Essential to working lives

-       Start talking practically about movement

-       Consider single visa entry into the EU to limit costs and burden

-       Consider CI visa exemption

-       Freelance workers from across CI disciplines already pay much of their own costs

-       Don’t further burden this group

-        Decentivize CI workers if visa is required at every border

-       TV and Film production of N. Ireland perhaps jeopardized by Brexit

-       Consumer impact - unable to see the performers because of visa restrictions or requirements

-       Lack of multi-directional influence between domestic and international art communities, inhibit creativity and flow of ideas/practices

-       Call for MPs to dialogue with creative sector on how to make Brexit practical

-       Advocates for a single entry visa

Paula Graham-Gazzard

-       Begins by recalling emotional experience at Tate Cornwall over artists experience of detachment from int’l communities during WWII

-       Art council survey finds that institution leaders find free movement more important than funding

-       Britain's influential role in Europe translates to soft power

-       Brexit has damaged UK’s soft power abroad

-       Need a freelance visa scheme for creative sector

-       Visa scheme should not impose limitations on small enterprises

-       Consider Creative Europe and Erasmus projects and how now there will be a gap in these services

-       93% of arts affiliates access EU funding

-       Smaller organisations often represent diversity - consider the impact lack of funding will have on their participation and ability to continue working

-       CI need to be consulted in funding packages

-       Higher education role in CI has been to shelter galleries

-       EU structural funds in UK need to be replaced

-       Don’t treat arts like STEM

-       Since the referendum there’s been a ‘brexidous’/ brain drain of talent

-       Weaken british soft power

-       Need to streamline visas for students and staff globally

-       Int’l is important for expanding into new markets

-       Regulate frameworks

-       More research into what are the needs of the CI

Tim Scott

-       Gaming businesses of all sizes need access to int’l talent

-       Requires cross disciplinary skills - artists of all types

-       Relies on world class int’l to be cutting edge

-       ⅓ of the workforce are from the EU

-       UK candidates are not equipped with the necessary skills

-       Working on that

-        The UK reputation abroad has been damaged and seen as unwelcoming to int’l talent

-       Need to remain open to top global talent

-       Shortage of skills domestically

-       Require a flexible system to bring int’l talent in

-       Int’l talent provides insight in how to operate in emerging int’l markets

-       Int’l talent brings with it new opportunities

Bob & Roberta Smith

-       Peace and freedom need to make art across disciplines

-       Art & trade of objects and ideas fuels imagination 

-       Brexit is a setback for the arts

-       Profit from understanding british art is hybrid - always has been informed by local and other cultures

-       Brexit denies this truth about british culture

-       Politicians need to fight to remain

-       Support second referendum

-       16&17 year olds should be allowed to vote and participate in the shape of their futures

-       No Borders

Alison McGovern MP Chair of Performer’s Alliance APPG

-       Politics need stories - can’t do politics without the arts

Sharon Hodgson MP Chair of Art, Craft and Design in Education APPG

-       Collaboration across the sector and with politicians

-       Here today we see the APPGs from varying art affiliates coming together to make their voices heard last time this was organised by Susan Coles and Tamara Cincik, and this time Chloe Alexander, coordinator for the Performer’s Alliance APPG, has done a fantastic job bringing us all together and even today the Classical Music APPG has joined our group and we invite more APPGs to come together with us in this work.

-       Health and wellbeing relies on access to the arts

-       CI important to society

-       Gov’t needs to listen to the demands of the creative sector

-       Persist in pushing the gov’t to support the creative sector